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| More on EU Patents - The Storm is Growing |
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Thursday, July 08 2004 @ 07:30 AM EDT
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Every time you hear something new about software patents in Europe, it gets more interesting. The International Herald Tribune is now reporting that when the Netherlands withdrew its support last week for the Directive on Software Patents, it really started something:"The adoption of a European Union law on software patents could be in doubt after accusations of missteps and mishaps during a May 18 meeting of the EU Competitiveness Council in Brussels.
"Officials in a number of European countries say that votes cast by ministers during the meeting to hammer out political differences did not reflect the position of their governments.
"Among the accusations: that the Dutch minister misinformed his national Parliament about the directive’s status; that a stand-in for the Danish minister was coerced into a ‘‘yes’’ vote; that the German minister accepted last-minute changes to amendments made by his own country that were contrary to the wishes of the government; and that the Polish government, which originally abstained, was not asked for its opinion when the final agreement was recorded."
The article says:
- The storm has spread to national parliaments in Germany and Denmark and is provoking questions about the EU directive in Poland and Portugal
- The Competitiveness Council — an economics advisory group that is part of the EU Council of Ministers -- is alleged to have added last-minute amendments and presented them as a ‘‘political compromise’’ when they actually would legalize software patents, something the earlier vote by the national governments on the proposal had not permitted, and that it falsely claimed that the current version of the directive is favorable to small and midsize companies.
- Despite the Dutch Parliament voting to change its vote to abstention, the economics affairs minister, Laurens Jan Brinkhorst, is saying that he doesn't have to. This is the same individual who has been accused of leading the Dutch Parliament into believing that the last-minute amendments were being rubber-stamped by the Council of Ministers. "Mr. Brinkhorst doesn’t feel obligated to change the vote from a ‘yes’ to an abstention in order to take into account the concerns expressed by the Dutch Parliament,’’ said Joop Nijssen, a spokesman for the Dutch EU mission in Brussels who spoke on behalf of the minister." Instead he said the
minister plans to ask the EU to "take the Dutch Parliament’s concerns into consideration" when the directive comes up for a final vote.
I so hate politics. But I knew many of you would be interested in hearing about this. You can read the Motion passed by the Dutch Parliament, thanks to FFII. I don't personally see what confusion there could be as to their intention: ". . . considering that the minister of Economic Affairs misinformed the Parliament about the nature of the planned proposal shortly before the Council meeting, as a result of which the Parliament was unable to fulfil its controlling task as it should;
"considering that a directive about the patentability of software must lead to harmonisation of legislation within the EU in order to prevent excesses with regard to the patentability of software;
"EXPRESSES it's [the Parliament's] opinion that the political agreement as reached at the Competitiveness Council of 17 and 18 May 2004 offered insufficient guarantees to prevent excesses with regard to software patentability;
"CALLS UPON the government to convey this opinion of the Parliament to the other EU member states;
"CALLS UPON the government to act according to this opinion in further discussions of the Council proposal, and from this present moment, abstain from supporting the current Council proposal"
Apparently what happened was Brinkhort sent a letter that misled Parliament, and now the Secretary of State says it was actually the computer's fault: "In a letter to parliament before the council, Brinkhorst had stated an agreement between the European Parliament and the Council. This was misinforming the parliament. . . . Secretary of state Van Gennip, who represented Minister Brinkhorst at the meeting, claimed the misinformation regarding the agreement between the EP and the Council was caused by a bad wording due to a 'word processing error'." Of course. HAL went beserk again. I think the Dutch can't hold a candle to the US when it comes to computer excuses, though. Here's the winner, hands down.
Cordis News is adding:
"Indeed, proposals have been introduced in parliaments in other EU countries, including Germany, to reflect on a change in their own votes.
"This change of circumstances could lead to a new vote by the Competitiveness Council to invalidate its previous decision, thus making software ineligible for patenting."
Macworld UK says "Poland, Portugal, Germany and Denmark were among the member states that believe their opinions were incorrectly reported."
How many votes need to change to turn the vote around? Six, according to this report in PCPro, but each country gets more than one vote, so one country with six or more votes could turn this vote around: "Dieter Van Uytvanck, spokesman of FFII Netherlands, said: 'This political signal reaches much further than just The Netherlands. We hope that other European countries that also have their doubts about the proposal of the Council will also withdraw their support, so that the current proposal no longer has a majority. The historic precedent has been set now.'
"Van Uytvanck said that just five more votes would break the majority in favour of the Ministers' draft proposal. Each country has more than one vote. He said Portugal alone would be able to topple the draft if it decided to abstain."
Why are so many small and medium companies opposed to software patents? "Critics of software patents say that they disadvantage small companies and discourage innovation as software developers cannot be expected to be aware of potential patent infringements when developing new products.
"Big companies can build large patent portfolios and cross-license with each other, but can also use these patents to block smaller rivals out of the market by demanding high licence fees or pursuing litigation.
"Furthermore, critics say software patents are often described too loosely, allowing them to be used to in a broad and unjust manner. For example, instead of patenting a concrete invention such as a particular bridge design, you might be granted a patent on 'a method to get from one side to another', which you could use against people that make anything that could be used to cross a divide."
Many large companies, including Nokia, Siemens, Alcatel, Ericsson, and Phillips, support software patents in Europe. Natch.
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| Authored by: PJ on Thursday, July 08 2004 @ 07:56 AM EDT |
| Please collect all typos and other corrrections here. Thank you. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: bruce_s on Thursday, July 08 2004 @ 08:00 AM EDT |
OT & Links here please
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| Authored by: PeteS on Thursday, July 08 2004 @ 08:01 AM EDT |
I am amused by this (in the political sense)
<<"Mr. Brinkhorst doesn’t feel obligated to change the vote from a
‘yes’ to an abstention in order to take into account the concerns expressed by
the Dutch Parliament,’’>>
I smell a newly opened position soon.
Pete S
---
Today's subliminal thought is:
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, July 08 2004 @ 08:19 AM EDT |
| Yes! [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Scott_Lazar on Thursday, July 08 2004 @ 08:33 AM EDT |
"Secretary of state Van Gennip, who represented Minister Brinkhorst at the
meeting, claimed the misinformation regarding the agreement between the EP and
the Council was caused by a bad wording due to a 'word processing error'."
Must have been using Micro$oft Word.......
Scott
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LINUX - Visibly superior![ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: k12linux on Thursday, July 08 2004 @ 08:52 AM EDT |
it was actually the computer's fault
Once
again demonstrating why you shouldn't use MS-Word. It apparently has enough
embedded AI to revise documents which might negatively affect MS profits. hehe
Note to MS lawyers: This is an attempt at humor and not necessarily a
statement of fact. So go away.
---
- SCO is trying to save a
sinking ship by drilling holes in it. -- k12linux [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: amcguinn on Thursday, July 08 2004 @ 09:18 AM EDT |
| I hesitate to drag my own political obsessions in here, but this really
is a textbook case.
Compared to all the insane overcentralising and
standardising that the EU does, ensuring a consistent patent law across most of
Europe is actually a pretty sensible idea. But when the EU sets its collective
hand to it, what happens? Rather than harmonise and compromise between the
existing laws of the member countries, it falls prey to special interests and
produces what amounts to a major policy change for every state!
Now, if the
(small) uproar that is now resulting actually forces a little democracy into the
process, that will be a blow against my argument. But the Brinkhorst quote is
typical -- ministers across Europe are used to the idea that they can defy their
own voters by claiming something was a "European" decision, simultaneously fob
the European Parliament off by claiming to represent their nation's voters, and
in the confusion put through whatever policy they like without reference to any
voters anywhere.
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| Authored by: Griffin3 on Thursday, July 08 2004 @ 09:52 AM EDT |
I am inspired to create a new methods patent: 9,976,682—A Method of
Using Computer-Related Excuses to Cover and Explain Factual Errors. The time
and money involved to really file such a patent would be much too expensive for
a practical joke ... but does anyone think that maybe one could whip up a
simulated patent, and send it to these guys, threatening a lawsuit for unlawful
use of their IP? Not as a serous lawsuit, but as a wake-up to show the sort of
nonsense that the current patent regime will allow ...
{Sigh} I just
don't know if Mister Dutch Minister (or his staff) would get the joke.
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| Authored by: Jude on Thursday, July 08 2004 @ 09:57 AM EDT |
Let's think about this. I'd guess that there are perhaps a few thousand foreign
lobbyists, and that the DOJ records only a fraction of their activities. OTOH,
there are nearly 290 million American citizens, many of whom frequenty engage in
transactions that the government wants to record in a huge database that will
supposedly be used to catch terrorists.
The DOJ is telling us that merely querying the database that supposedly holds
the records of foreign lobbyist activities will crash the computer, but we're
supposed to believe they'll be able to get useful information from the raging
torrent of information about everyone's daiy activities.
Yeah, right.
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| Authored by: lifewish on Thursday, July 08 2004 @ 10:08 AM EDT |
Do we have access to the Brinkhort letter, so we can see whether it could
conceivably have been a "word processor error"? If it is possible that
it was a genuine mistake, fair enough - Brinkhort and co should provide details
of what the letter was supposed to say. If we receive nothing more than this
unconvincing argument then it's definite that the letter was deliberately
misleading - innocent people generally try to prove their innocence.
---
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"Diplomacy: the art of saying 'Nice doggy' until you can find a stick" - Wynn
Catlin[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, July 08 2004 @ 10:17 AM EDT |
PJ dislikes the discussion of politics on this (her) site. IMHO this is a very
reasonable position to take. However patents are political so it is probaly will
be some (possibly heated) discussion here. Please keep to the point as PJ has
asked you to.
The information about the state of the Dutch parliment is of considerable
interest to many readers here not from Holland. It would also be (IMHO) of
interest to now the position of the othe dissenting governments. There is little
to no point hearing about those agreeing - Ireland and the UK in particular.
Thank you to the Dutch posters.
Perhaps some insight into the costs of patents here might be in place. Filing a
patent costs ~$10,000 a pop. In Germany 500-600 patents per year are challenged
at a cost of ~$250,000 per case. The cost in the UK is ~$1 million because
apparently the patent searching is more extensive. How this can be the case when
all the countries use the same patent office Im not sure. (A typical case in the
UK use 2 solicitors, 4 barristers and a patent agent. Barristers are roughly the
equivelent of trial lawyers in the US.)
The bottom line: patents and patent challenges are NOT cheap. This automatically
biases them against the 'common man' whom they were *originally* supposed to
protect.
--
MadScientist[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, July 08 2004 @ 10:42 AM EDT |
It seems to me that software patents is only the surface issue here. Since this
apparently sets a precedent, it will extend to how European voters perceive the
EU is governed and could provoke structural changes.
European voters don't want Europe to be governed the way the U.S. is governed.
Since Microsoft is behind the original software patent vote, it means Microsoft
is becoming a foreign policy problem for the U.S.
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| Authored by: eamacnaghten on Thursday, July 08 2004 @ 11:15 AM EDT |
| Unfortunately, although these shinanigans in the Council of Europe and European
Parliament is somewhat unique, and very extraordinary (even for Europe) the
issue is not getting hardly any coverage in the mainstream press here yet.
This is frustrating. It is very difficult to get the MEP's and/or the MP's
interest when dealing with an issue that is not mainstream - they simply refer
your enquiry over to their "expert", and in the case of software patents - guess
what the governemnt "experts" think!
Hopefully this will get more
attention, and when or if it does, the idiocy of software patents and the
"smokey-backroom-deals" between large corporations, civil servants and
politicians will be further exposed. It would be a good day for the demise of
Software Patents in Europe that.
We can only keep trying and living in
hope.
Web Sig:Eddy Currents [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, July 08 2004 @ 12:06 PM EDT |
Three
One to think of it
One to write it down
One to ask the kindergarten teacher to post it...
If you've got a better one, please add it.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, July 08 2004 @ 02:29 PM EDT |
MacWorld has changed the wording about Denmark to become incorrect.
Yes, the "storm has spread" to the Danish parliament. - or at least to
the group monitoring the government EU-policy on behalf of the parliament.
No, the Danish government doesn't believe its opinion were incorrectly
reported!
Actually, the Danish minister has expressed that he is very satisfied with the
result of the council vote.
... whether the parliament still is behind the minister before the next vote is
an open question though.
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| Authored by: Tim Ransom on Thursday, July 08 2004 @ 04:27 PM EDT |
Link
Dig deep, Ouija people!---
Thanks again,
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: haegarth on Thursday, July 08 2004 @ 05:57 PM EDT |
Alas, as Heise reported, there's a constant movement in favour of software
patents in Germany, at least in the Governments inner circles. Chancellor
Schröder recently held a speech in Munich, at the German Museum, where he was
accompanied by our Minister of Justice Brigitte Zypries and, what a surprise,
Siemens CEO Heinrich von Pierer, stating that "IP is a guardian for
innovation, provides economic growth and creates employment" (quite freely
translated from German, heise has it here:
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/48897, in case someone might want to run
bablefish over it).
Well, it wouldn't be the first time the German Govt at hand would rule in favour
of lobbyists, as they recently did with a law that still allows people to make
backup copies of software, CDs and DVDs they rightfully own, but on the other
hand forbids us to do so when the material is copy protected - we aren't even to
own software that helps us overcome any protection. So, if I purchase a music CD
with one of those weird copy protection schemes on it (which in fact is no music
CD at all, because it doesn't adhere to the old orange book standard) I'm not
allowed to copy it and use that copy in my car instead of the original, which
usually is anything but cheap around here.
Funnily, each and every CD and DVD has a label on it stating 'Copy protected
material', and even if there might not be any copy protection on it, I would be
breaking the law by making a copy. Funny.
I don't want to discuss the legal aspects of this act or of P2P networks and
such (IANAL), but it shows that our Government still seems to believe that, as
long as everything works out for the big players, the 'small people' also get
their benefits. I must admit: I doubt that. I'm afraid the idealistic
entrepreneur is an endangered species.
So I don't expect them to vote against software patents in the EU parliament. Of
course there seems some movement against software patents over here - that much
is true - but I'm quite pessimistic about the effectiveness of that movement,
and I really don't expect a German vote against software patents under the
current circumstances. It seems the social democrats at the helm in our country
try to use every measure to get things right at the moment (don't get me wrong,
I voted for them, but I'm starting to regret that...), because they haven't been
too successful providing economic growth and lowering unemployment rates lately
- not that I believe that a Government of a different political colour would
have a better chance these days.
Our Government seems to be desparate, so as of now I expect desparate decisions,
and the vote for software patents in the EU parliament may well be one of
those.
---
MS holds the patent on FUD, and SCO is its licensee....[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Woelfchen on Friday, July 09 2004 @ 04:34 AM EDT |
As far as I know the whole thing with the EU Patent dispute went like
this.
- The European Council made a far going proposal about
patentability of software.
- The European Parliament came to a resolution
forcing the Council to revise this proposal and to substantially narrow the
patentability of software.
- The Council of Ministers finally signed a bill
of intention which not only restored the original proposal of the European
Council but ignored the advise from the parliament and in some points exceeded
the original while trying to obfuscate this by using different and inprecise
wordings.
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| Authored by: jccooper on Friday, July 09 2004 @ 06:59 PM EDT |
Somewhat offtopic, to be sure, but what exactly does "natch" mean? I
have never heard anyone use this in speech. Perhaps it comes from the same place
as "whinge" (which I take to mean "whine")?[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Natch, Naturally - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, July 09 2004 @ 09:25 PM EDT
- Natch, Naturally - Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, August 03 2004 @ 10:28 AM EDT
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